[extropy-chat] Are vaccinations useless?

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 11:13:29PM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> On 3/18/06, Robin Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> wrote:
> 
> that the marginal health value of medicine seems
> > near zero today, both in rich and poor countries.   This is also
> > the consensus among health economists.
> 
> ### No, it isn't. Even the references on your own site say the opposite.

Rafal, I'd like to thank you for explaining RCT and other terms in your last
post -- people too often use acronyms while assuming others will know what
they mean.

I'd also point out that statements such as the one about references have more
force if specific examples are given, though natually we don't always have
time to dig such examples up, if we simply remember they existed.

> > At 03:12 AM 3/14/2006, BillK wrote:

> > Most of those worthless treatments and unnecessary surgeries are
> > recommended and performed by respected and credentialed doctors.   How
> > are ordinary people supposed to distinguish them from the valuable
> > treatments?
> 
> ### There is no "huge scale" of medical fraud. Most treatments offered
> by allopathic physicians today actually are not worthless, since the
> majority of them are supported by RCTs.

Allopathic means normal, conventional medicine?

-xx- Damien X-)